Image is of protestors in Nigeria in 2024.
As I'm sure everybody is aware by now, Trump's accusation that Nigerian armed groups are unfairly persecuting Christians in the country is a rather bizarre lie, seeking a justification to go in, to quote Trump, "guns-a-blazing". Whether this is likely to actually occur or is merely a threat, who can really say nowadays? But Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are targeting people in Nigeria fairly indiscriminately; insomuch that there is a target, it is farmers whose land is being raided and taken in resource conflicts, and their religious affiliation is not usually questioned by those groups before they are pillaged and/or murdered from what I can tell.
The President of Nigeria, Tinubu, has no small responsibility for this state of affairs - enacting IMF "reforms" which have exacerbated hunger, poverty, and unemployment in the service of Western financial institutions. Those who have protested against this state of affairs have faced repression by state security forces. Meanwhile, Tinubu allegedly has strong connections to the DEA, paying large amounts of money to avoid a trial for his actions; the DEA released this statement: “We oppose the full… release of the DEA’s Bola Tinubu heroin trafficking investigation records,” which is certainly not concerning at all - followed by “While Nigerians have a right to be informed about what their government is up to, they do not have a right to know what their president is up to.”
It must be a shame for him that such a loyal subject of empire is facing such scrutiny, and it likely has everything to do with Nigeria's inexorably growing connections to China (just like pretty much every country on the planet), especially in relation to Nigeria's massive mineral deposits. It could also perhaps be retribution for Nigeria's failure to adequately oppose the growing independence of the Sahel.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Some interesting sub-points in the article and I enjoyed the perspective but I don’t agree with the core thesis.
I don’t agree with this assertion since they can simply flag the “Russian threat” as a justification to continue increased spending for another decade after this war ends anyway.
The article also makes points about the “Danish model” (Denmark investing in defense manufacturing within Ukraine) which seem to run directly counter to the thesis that the spending is intended as stimulus since that would function as stimulus better by spending it in Denmark or the EU.
Further, the loss of access to cheap Russian gas is a major factor in pushing Europe further into stagnation / recession, so it’s putting the cart before the horse a bit. At most the stimulus effect of defense spending is enjoying a bit of cream after killing the cow.
I think it’s likely accurate to say that defense spending is welcome economic stimulus. It’s also accurate that Europe needs a Ukrainian state of some kind to survive the war else they will have to write-off hundreds of billions in war debt.
But I suspect the cost of massively increased defense spending, loss of Russian gas, all the other costs of supporting Ukraine… surely these costs are massive compared to the cost of writing off a couple of hundred billion in debt? The idea that a desire to get that debt repaid is a driver of European policy towards Russia seems suspect since a few hundred billion in debt (that will probably be restructured or defaulted on either way) just isn’t that much in the true scale of things.
I think the best way to understand the wests motivations is to see them as geopolitical actors who want to curtail Russia’s sphere of influence in Europe.